'HARDENED' PRISONS CALLED BAD FOR REHAB

System 'Seems To Be Preparing' For Overcrowding, Watchdog Says

Canadian prisons are becoming "hardened" places where inmates are
increasingly confined to their cells, prohibited from having visitors,
restricted in their exercise, subjected to lockdowns, and less likely
to secure temporary absences, says a report from Canada's prison watchdog.

"Many on-site visits this year confirmed that the physical conditions
of confinement have been significantly hardened, especially at the
high-security levels" wrote correctional investigator Howard Sapers in
his annual report, released Monday.

"The problem, of course, is that a more punitive and restrictive
environment is not one that is likely to promote rehabilitation of
inmates."

The prison ombudsman's report also confirms that temporary absences,
work releases and day parole grant rates are now at their lowest level
this decade, and consequently, offenders are often freed at the end of
the their term without the benefit of discretionary releases behind
them.

The report surmises that the crackdown -- an "us-versus-them
mentality" -- is an attempt to control gang affiliation and drug use
in prisons.

Sapers, however, told Canwest News Service that he believes the prison
system is becoming meaner to "brace itself for the storm" of an
anticipated influx of inmates who will be captured by the Harper
government's tough-on-crime laws that will put more people in prison
for longer.

"The system seems to be preparing itself for more people," said
Sapers, who predicted prison over-crowding and a proliferation of
"double bunking."

For the last several years, Sapers has highlighted the problem of the
prison system warehousing mentally ill offenders and this year's
report said that it is getting worse without adequate treatment or
workers to cope with people who often should be cared for by the
health system rather than in penitentiaries.

"Mental health-care delivery and related services and supports in
federal corrections are perhaps the most serious and pressing issues
facing the service today," he wrote.

Sapers issued a report earlier this year that said that the risk of
suicide in prisons remains unacceptably high because of the
government's focus on security over the needs of mentally ill inmates
such as Ashley Smith. A New Brunswick teen with mental-health
problems, Smith was 19 when she killed herself in 2007 at the Grand
Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont.

The prison ombudsman's latest report notes that there has been a
substantial increase in reports of "self-harm" incidents, which more
than doubled in the six-month period from April to September 2008,
compared to the same period in 2006.

Sapers reported that the gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal
offenders continues to grow and that the rate for aboriginal
incarceration last year was nine times the national average.

There are about 13,000 offenders serving sentences of two years or
more in 54 federal penitentiaries.